[The Future of AI] AI and the Physical World with Pieter Abbeel, Co-founder of Covariant and Daniela Rus, Professor at MIT

Index Audio

“We're building robots that swim like fish and move like turtles. Robots that brush your hair, robots that pack your groceries, and can reason that you shouldn't put milk on top of lettuce. Robots that can recycle, robotic pills that enable incision free surgeries. In each of these examples, we have to think about the body of the robot, we have to think about the brain of the robot, and what is the interaction between the robot and the users.” - Daniela Rus

Hear about the latest advances in robotics from those working in the forefront of the field.

Daniela Rus is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT and Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Her research spans across all of robotics, everything from soft surface robotics, to human robot interactions, to autonomous driving.

Pieter Abeel is the Director of the Berkeley Robot Learning Lab and Co-director of the Berkeley AI Research Lab at the University of California. Pieter is also the co-founder of Covariant.ai, which looks to bring some of the research that he's been doing with his group at Berkeley to real world applications in fulfillment centers and beyond. He's also the host of the Robot Brains podcast.

Daniela & Pieter are interviewed by Index’s Bryan Offutt.

“In academia, robotics is about emphasizing novelty. It’s about going places we’ve never been before….. But for companies that bring robotics into the real world, the real challenge is about achieving really high reliability.” - Pieter Abeel